Birthday Owl - Tigerlilly Quinn

Hello! Hope you all had a nice weekend, I'm exited for this weeks theme..i love home :)

Its my birthday today so I am treating you to a new owl illo from yours truly, enjoy! hehe xoxo

We illustrate... Home

Hello!
I hope you are all looking forward to a snow filled week ahead :)

Our theme this week is 'home'.  As our tea & crayons girls are scattered across England, all the way from Bristol up to Newcastle, I thought it would be interesting for us to create something that represents where we are or from. So we can document ourselves around the country :)

Enjoy!

Rachel P x

Natasha Illustrates...Strangers ♥

I don't really travel anywhere unless it's to go to the big city so I'm rarely on trains and so couldn't sketch anyone falling asleep on one. I do however walk to work every day and see quite a few people on the way and happily going about their business in the town centre with all their christmas shopping now we're coming into December. I thought it would be interesting to include these as they sort of fit in with the whole feel of things at the moment, the rosy cheeks, the christmas shop, wrapping up warm and feeling sleepy.

Rachel Illustrates... Strangers

I'm a little bit late, but I've finally scanned in my 'strangers' contribution.
I was on a train for 6 hours yesterday and it would've been the perfect opportunity to draw strangers, but the train was so packed, I didn't have alot of space :( I snapped a pic on my phone and drew it when the woman got off the train - she was really irritating, so she probably would'nt have liked me drawing her openly!

It's been a while since I sketched people from observation so it was a fun challenge :)

Iphone Sketchbook Drawings

OK I'm going to jump on the bandwagon with this one, coincidentally I read about this artist over the weekend and he fits perfectly with the 'strangers theme'. I was impressed to discover he does these sketches on the NY subway using his IPhone!

His name is Eric Molinsky and you can check out his blog here. check out some of my favorites of his below..

Inspiration: Lynne Chapman

Well, Rachel's post just reminded me of a great illustrator I discovered when I first joined twitter, Lynne Chapman. She too illustrates strangers on her train journeys.

I love the changes in the quality of her line work, as well as the wonderful added colour and writing. It reminds me of some of the tea and crayon's ladies actually!

I hope you like these too, I find them rather inspiring! It shows that practice makes perfect. I think I may try to carry a sketchbook around always, I want to improve my observation skills further!

Inspiration: Ami Underground

After setting the weekly 'Strangers' theme, and knowing my main opportunity to do it would be while on the Tube, I remembered there was an artist I came across a few years ago that did a similar thing.

After much searching through my bookmarks, I remembered it was Ami.Underground and I spent a good while looking through his stuff again.

He spends literally every day drawing these people, on the NY subway, and he's amazing at it. He clearly has no qualms about drawing strangers and the fluidity and immediacy of his sketches are lovely.

Amazing right? Hope you've all had a good weekend, I'll be posting more inspiration stuff soon :)

Rachel L x

Kayleigh illustrates... strangers

Hello all. Rachel L's 'We illustrate' for this week was certainly a challenge, but I love the varied results we've seen so far and enjoyed the thrill of the challenge! Hehe.


My initial idea was to draw strangers while dining in fast-food's finest McDonalds (ha!), however it was really difficult. I managed to draw one lady sheepishly eating her chips (see top illustration) but didn't dare draw anyone else. The other two quick sketches I made came from when I held a craft stall. As I sat there freezing my toes off, I thought what better time than to draw a few strangers?

Doing these speedy sketches reminded me of my old life-drawing lessons. Do you regularly draw people on the go? If not, I say give it a whirl! It certainly tests your observational skills and loosens you up somewhat. Thanks for a great challenge Rachel :)

Rachel L illustrates... Strangers

After I set this task, and I realised I had to actually do it, I started to regret it. I haven't drawn people in this way for a long long time and I was a bit scared! But then I just did it... and loved it. These are the best and most fully formed of the people I spotted; the problem with the Underground is someone can get up and leave and all you've got is an eyebrow and half a nose. But the great thing about the Underground is you get everyone from all walks of life.. and I think I'm going to keep drawing people, it totally beats reading nonsensical shit in the Metro and staring into space.

What's funny is that the majority of people I draw will be looking down; reading a book or the Metro themselves; I can't really draw people if they're looking right at me! Ha. And also, in the case of the woman, asleep too. Creepy.

Win the Cover of the Metro

So i'm sorry you are fed up of me talking about this over at my blog and on twitter! But thought I would share here too.

A few months ago I found out that I had won designing the cover of the Metro! My cover came out earlier this week and I was so exited! (See exited face below..)

This was a huge deal for me and meant that millions would have seen my work all over the UK! I have a had a couple of exiting emails over some collab work on children's books which is really great and I cannot wait to get started on.

Well I hope you like!

Abby illustrates... strangers

When I saw this I was a little scared- I'm not great at quick drawings and I'm a bit of a perfectionist! I do get a little afraid of sharing drawings I'm not completely happy with, but this brief is good - It's something i just have to get on with and practice makes perfect, oui?

I get the bus to uni almost daily and always see these two adorable old ladies.. I like to think at that age i'll have a friend like this! They always wear headscarves too (aww!) I didn't get a great angle, but maybe this week i'll see them again!

Hope you like it! :)

Abby x

Fritha Illustrates - Strangers

I have to say I felt really daunted by this prompt as it seemed like a major challenge. I am the first to admit I'm not really very good at actually drawing things as how they are. I can draw from my imagination fine but if I get myself worked up about something actually looking like something sometimes it just doesn't quite work.

Well this lunch time I went to Boston Tea Party in Bristol and tried to spy some strangers. I sat opposite this guy and pretended I was doing anything other than drawing him. I guess he might have worked at the bank or the travel agent because of his badge...

I only had a red pen so he is red

I actually am kinda pleased with the result, it encorperates my style without trying to hard to be what it is supposed to be I think!

Hope you like! xoxo

We illustrate... Strangers

Hello everyone, hope you've all had a lovely weekend?

This week, Tea & Crayons will be illustrating strangers for you. I picked this theme because I think it's quite challenging to draw people you don't know, (often) quickly, capturing their character before they guess what you're doing and either a) move away or b) start posing. Which ruins it. (or c), chase you away. Scary.)

I sit amongst hundreds of strangers every day on the tube, but it's a very cramped place so drawing someone feels weird. I guess you just have to get over it; most of the time they probably don't think you're doing it.

It also forces us to observe people in their daily life, gets us out of our comfort zones a bit and means we have to carry a sketchbook everywhere!

Look out for our '....illustrates Strangers' posts all this week!

Rachel L x

Suit Yourself Magazine

Hello!
I featured this over at my blog earlier in the week but thought I would share here too :)

This is an illo I did for Bristol free magazine Suit Yourself.

It was so cool to see myself in print! I send a copy to my mum and she was so proud hehe

Hope your having a lovely weekend! xoxo

New work from Rachel Lewis: Proud Kitchen for Amelia's Magazine

This fits in with our current theme of Snacks quite nicely...

Last week I was commissioned by Amelia’s Magazine to produce a couple of illustrations for an article by Jessica Furseth about the launch of new Camden restaurant, Proud Kitchen.

Above is my first illustration; the space is an extension of what is already known as a venue for music, art, cabaret and clubbing – the launch of Proud Kitchen completes the experience. It is an old converted stable so you can still see the original features like windows and beams, in the above illustration.

A starter of bresaola of beef, with piccalilli and sourdough toast - Looks so yummy – illustrating food from a photo is never quite as good as when you get to make it and eat it yourself!

Check out Proud Kitchen here – And Read the article by Jess Furseth on Amelia’s Magazine here.

www.rachelsayshello.com 

Collective Sketchbook - Fritha (Tigerlilly Quinn)

Introducing our collective sketchbook! Every few weeks we fill up a few pages and send on! At the moment we are going south to north so I was lucky enough to start! There is pretty much nothing more I like than a fresh new sketchbook although I did feel a little daunted starting the whole thing off! Every so often we are going to upload what we are working on and then hopefully when it is all full up get it in print! I love the idea of sharing a sketchbook with all these talented ladies! xoxo

This is my first page, hope you like! oxox Tigerlilly

Natasha Illustrates...Snacks ♥

today i had some lovehearts (naughty!) after Abby sending me them I can't get enough! ♥

Fritha (Tigerlilly Quinn) Illustrates - Snacks

Hello, well I'm kinda surprised at myself because when I got this prompt I thought, yay lots of cupcake and sweeties drawing..but no all week I have ended up eating fruit! Who would have thought it!

Rachel illustrates... Snacks

Mmm yummy cupcakes.
Probably not the healthiest of snacks but ever so satisfying. And pink!

Abby illustrates... snacks

Well here comes my first snack. Now it's a little unusual for me, usually you can find me with some type of chocolate snack, but my first illustration is an orange. (It was a very messy affair!)

This is one of the first hand drawn illustrations I've done in some time, I hope you like it!

Abby xx

Kayleigh illustrates... snacks

Hot on the heels of Rachel L, here are a few of the snacks I've been munching this evening...

Rachel illustrates...Snacks

Rachel L here, kicking off this week's theme, and a mighty fine choice it is. Everyone loves a good bit of snackage, especially in this cold weather!

Ah, Elevenses. The staple of snacking. I can't say this is the best snack ever, but a cereal bar keeps me going til lunch and they haven't got that many calories!

Rachel xx
www.rachelsayshello.com

Ballad Of - Nanny Floff Launch Party

Hello! Fritha here, hope you all had a lovely weekend?

I was off in London town with my mister for the Ballad Of party in Shorditch. I had an apsolute fail regarding pics I'm afraid as my Iphone as no flash and I forgot my camera!

'Ballad Of ' is a magazine that was founded by two 'Northern Art geeks' (Lindsey & Claire) who are based in South London.

They spend their time publishing art they love in their own magazine and online exhibition space for brand new, emerging artists


They are stocked in : RD Franks,Jumbo Records (Leeds), The Tate Modern, Compton News, Selfridges, Harrods (Waterstones), Terrys News Stand, Rococo, Lauries, M2 (Covent Garden), Press Bureau, Magma (Covent Garden), Artswords Bookshop (Shoreditch) & Soho Original.

Tom and I turned up fairly early (after getting a little lost in the rain around Shorditch and trying to located ourselves on my Iphone map hehe). As soon as we turned up Lindsey and Claire greeted us with hugs and a free Nanny Floff cocktail (yum). I thought it might be kind of odd as I had spoken with them quite alot through the Internet but they are just as lovely in real life!

There was a live drawing event featuring the artists Iamanoctopus, Jamie Mills, Sandra Dieckmann, Natsuki Otani,  Murray Somerville & Thomas Bates . I didnt want to disturb them as I am a little in awe of a lot of these artists, but I really wish I had gone and said hello now!

images of Sandra Deikmand and Erd Octo

I did have the lovely Emma Block come up and say hello though and bumped into Stacie Swift both of who's art work I really love, and talk to regularly on twitter. I'm pretty sure there were more peeps there that I might of 'known' but would not recognise them as there twitter avatars are usually illustrations!

I also got to speak to the lovely Be from Ballad Of in person which was ace as I had recently designed her logo and bits and bobs for her website (which is due to go live any day now) and is going to be full of lots of lovely vintage clothes mmmm.

What did you get up to this weekend? xoxo

We Illustrate...

'We illustrate...' is a weekly feature from Tea and Crayons. 


Each week one member of the group will choose a theme to illustrate, and then the Tea and Crayons ladies shall work their magic! Look out for posts throughout the week addressing the given theme. Illustrations we create can be anything from quick little sketches on the move, to full illustrations where we can find the time. 
The point of this weekly theme is to encourage more drawing, as I'm sure fellow creatives would agree everyone in the industry should do.


This week's theme is 'We illustrate... snacks' as chosen by myself, Kayleigh. Stay tuned to the Tea and Crayons blog to see what each member comes up with.

Event: The AOI Head to Head in London, 10.11.10

Hello all! Rachel Lewis here. (There's two Rachel's, I may change my name for ease ha) So lovely to see lots of nice new followers and friendly Tea & Crayons supporters! *waves*

On Wednesday this week I attended an event put on by The AOI (of which I and others of us are members of) called Head to Head, which presented "illustrators Jenny Bowers and Garry Parsons, who create imagery for a broad spectrum of commissioners, including editorial, children’s books, broadcasting and design. They talked about their work, careers, motivations and how they find work. The evening also included discussions moderated by Rod Hunt, covering a range of topics, including, Have you compromised your ethics for money? Do you feel the need to adapt for the future? How do you deal with clients, and other issues raised from the audience?"

It was a really good evening; I haven't been to an illustration talk for ages now and it left me feeling so inspired. Both illustrators gave a short talk about their work, what they do, how they got started, lots of useful things like that. Let's start with Jenny Bowers:

Jenny Bowers:

Her work is so lovely and so fun, the exact style I love. She has a unique visual language and I really aspire to have my work be so uniquely 'mine'. It's not quite there yet.

Jenny is part of the Peepshow Collective - a very established collective, set up in 2000, who have been going from strength to strength. She talked about how she joined (she wasn't an original member) and what they do when they are approached with projects; whether jointly, singularly, or just a few of them taking part. As a collective aesthetic, they're rather eclectic, which works perfectly on a lot of the things they do, especially large animation projects for clients like Nike, etc.

What was inspiring for me, (and for us, as a fledgling collective) was to hear how they have grown, how they present themselves, and everything from how they pay themselves (they are a Ltd company so get paid as Directors would, depending on who took part in each brief) to how they share resources and contacts. Until recently they have shared a studio together, working together and separately in a shared space - something I would love to do, and maybe in a few years, something Tea & Crayons could work towards. Being a freelancer is a lonely thing sometimes, and to have somewhere to go to work, that isn't your bedroom (and isn't your current full time job) would be lovely.

Above all, they are not precious about their contacts and ideas - everyone works together, and there's no sense of 'this is my contact, I'm not going to tell you' between them - if they feel like they can't fit the brief but someone else in the collective could, they tell them. It also means clients and art directors can approach them almost like an agency - all members can pitch for the brief and then it means that someone in the collective will probably get it - keeping that relationship with the client within the Collective so future commissions may come.

 Above all, I was struck by her work ethic, and what amazing clients she has had. Such as AOL, BBC, Channel 4, Creative Review, Don't Panic Media, Elle Decoration, Guardian, howies, Intro, John Brown Publishing, Kate Spade, Kessel Kramer, The New York Times Magazine... to name but a few. Amazing. I would do anything to work with any of those! Another interesting thing is the time-span of her career - I don't know how old she is but I'd say mid 30s maybe, but she said she'd only been a proper full time illustrator for 5 years; in that, she can fully support herself with illustration. Before that there had always been part time jobs, work as freelance production design assistants in television (she worked on Doctor Who!!) and such. Far from making me feel a bit depressed about how long it takes to reach your dreams, this buoyed me a bit - even amazingly talented illustrators have to go through the ropes for a good few years, but eventually, if it's your passion and you work hard enough, you'll get to where you want to be. Ultimately, it's all about patience (something which I have to work on..) and realising you're not going to be a fully established, full time illustrator overnight.

Garry Parsons:

Garry was second and had a slightly different story, although many threads were the same. He isn't part of a collective so has gone the more 'traditional route', eventually getting himself an agent. Both agents talked about the merits and disadvantages of having an agent for a bit - Jenny having only just recently acquired one, Garry Parsons having had one for a bit longer. I think the message overall was this; you don't need an agent to be successful, and some illustrators prefer to not have one, but they can be useful for negotiating higher prices that you normally could, for getting to clients that you normally couldn't, and above all, being able to fight your legal battles with you (such as when clients steal your copyright or your work!).

Garry has 2 threads to his work; Editorial and Advertising (as above) and Children's Books. He keeps the two portfolios very separate and this seems to work well for him; both careers have run simultaneously and when one dries up a little, there's always something going on with the other one. This I think is a really healthy approach to have and shows you don't have to pigeonhole yourself into one 'type' or even one style - even though both portfolios are clearly 'him', both feel different.

Garry was originally a painter, and eventually arrived at illustration a few years after graduating. To this end, he still produces all his children's book work with paint and ink; but his editorial is done in Photoshop. This is mainly to save time, as editorial has very short deadlines, but also does lend that slight different aesthetic, which gives a nice differentiation between the two.

Garry has also had a long and successful career so far, and went fully 'full time' a few years ago now too, agreeing with Jenny that you have to juggle part time work with illustration for a good while in order to become fully established. He was lucky in that he was working 3 days a week in retail, and could spend the rest of the time illustrating; for those of us with full time jobs it becomes harder to balance the two. In the end he said, you just have to fit in the illustration where you can and eventually, it will pay off.

When talking about how he got his first paying client, he said he simply started the traditional route, and fired off hundreds of self promotional postcards to magazines. Eventually, he was offered work by a Nursing magazine; 11 years later he still does work for them! Which is amazing and pretty rare I think; but he offered a good piece of advice - don't ignore the lesser heard of, trade magazines, such as nursing, or financial/mortgage type things - they will often take a chance on less established illustrators, rather than chasing The Guardian or The Times; start small and move up to them.

He still now sends postcard mailers and says he still finds them the best method of getting new clients. Jenny agreed, and said don't underestimate the power of free work, or work done for exhibitions; even though they don't pay, the exposure can lead to paying clients spotting them and contacting you. For example, she did some free work for an exhibition, which the V&A spotted and then commissioned her for something similar:

Vases for Concrete Hermit exhibition, Jenny Bowers

At the end of the talk, there was a Q&A session, which had really varying questions, everything from What's the best way to get an agent, to what's the worst client experience you've ever had. (Amusing, some of them, but probably not at the time. Everything from over-demanding, underpaying clients, to big names that steal your work *cough*Topshop*cough*) It's refreshing, although somewhat worrying to hear these stories - it's not just the slightly dodgy, non-paying clients that can screw you, so you have to really know your contracts, know your rights, and above all, not get disheartened. The Aoi are great at giving advice and have all kinds of knowledgeable people that can help you out, it's one of the reasons why I'm a member. Luckily, I haven't experience a bad client or getting ripped off - thankfully.

A really insightful and interesting evening, and has definitely inspired me to get cracking on more self promotion and pushing myself further. Some food for thought on the whole Collective side of things too; things that we'll be taking on board I think!

What are your experiences with starting out as an illustrator? How did you get your first client, or are you still working on that? Had any disasters or successes? Do share with Tea & Crayons!

www.rachelsayshello.com